(No HUD) How does engine damage behave in game?

[Voyager]

For reference, I'm running the P-47D-28 right now. 

 

Been learning to fly without the hud, and it struck me, how do you tell if your engine is getting damaged through improper settings? Does one see changes in the instrument reads from it? 

 

How does the damage manifest? Are we looking at a progressive drop in power/manifold pressure prior to halt? Does it just flip a switch? Are there multiple different effects? 

 

Back in the IL-2 days, I'd just fly to the Engine Overheat warning. Now that its gone, I find myself wondering what that actually means to the engine. 

 

Thank you, , 

 

Harry Voyager

[Psyrion]

Mostly when the RPM gets unstable. If you overheat you can tell from the RPM starting to jump up and down (other than looking at the temp gauges) and then you slam the radiators fully open. For battle damage it´s also true.

[Voyager]

2 minutes ago, Psyrion said:

Mostly when the RPM gets unstable. If you overheat you can tell from the RPM starting to jump up and down (other than looking at the temp gauges) and then you slam the radiators fully open. For battle damage it´s also true.

 

Ok, so does one see that occur when the temperatures (oil, cylinder head, water, carb air) are in the green or yellow ranges, or only when one of more of them have gone red? 

 

How does a fluctuating rpm impact engine performance? Is that indicating a drop off in power? 

[-TBC-AeroAce]

@Voyager this is a hard one.

 

It is quite easy to notice damage from over heating because you can see the temp gauges will be out of limits and you will also be venting coolant which you can see easily. 

 

Damage from over reving or from to high manifold pressure for too long is another story as once these things start to fluctuate the damage is already done and it will eventually die. If fact with a lot of engines they just stop with no initial damage stage what so ever. 

 

I'm not sure what is realistic or not but it would be nice to get a bit of feed back from the engine before it is permanently damaged from rpm or MP as the only way to make sure you don't break them atm is by being very conservative with the engine time limits. 

 

Be warned though this is a very touchy topic due to the way the devs have decided to model the engine limits.  Basically they have chosen to have very strict engine time limits as this stops people from taking advantage of full boost all the time. IRL the engine would not blow up because you were over the time limit it would just cause higher wear and tear requiring an engine over haul after flight. The only way to really model this wear and need for over haul would be if we had a game system that monitored your planes condition over a number of sorties and gave you a limmited number of engines/parts for a campaign meaning that if you burnt all your engines quickly you would not be able to fly until resupply and you would negatively impact your squadrons capabilities. I defo think this kind of role playing game aspect could be modelled and used in the career mode or on the persistent MP servers like TAW... but the Dev/hardware/server resources are most likely not there for that.

[Psyrion]

8 minutes ago, Voyager said:

 

Ok, so does one see that occur when the temperatures (oil, cylinder head, water, carb air) are in the green or yellow ranges, or only when one of more of them have gone red? 

 

How does a fluctuating rpm impact engine performance? Is that indicating a drop off in power? 

That occurs when you are above the maximum temperature. So when the warning would come on the hud I think. I have never tested if that has an performance impact. As AeroAce said, the engine damage modelling in the game is a bit artificial with strict timers and a bit of RNG. 

[Voyager]

4 minutes ago, AeroAce said:

 

Understood about the sensitivity about the source of the model. Have a whole separate thread on that elsewhere. 

 

What I'm looking for is the specific in game behaviour, and what to expect in the current existing engine model. The "Is" as it were, rather than the "could be".

[-TBC-AeroAce]

1 minute ago, Voyager said:

Understood about the sensitivity about the source of the model. Have a whole separate thread on that elsewhere. 

 

What I'm looking for is the specific in game behaviour, and what to expect in the current existing engine model. The "Is" as it were, rather than the "could be".

 

Well then I have answered in the first bit of my post that for over heating there is warning but for over reving or over ATA for too long there seems to be no warning until you start getting fluctuations and once that happens it is already broken and just a matter of time until it dies if it does not just die straight away.

[Voyager]

Guess this calls for testing. Thinking using auto level at predetermined altitudes and load outs, then trialing the failure modes. Thinking start from a known good max continuous speed, go into over drive condition and track IAS over time. 

 

Thinking: Turbo overrev, oil overheat, cylinder overheat, over rev at 42", over boost at 2500rpm, and over-carbheat?

 

Maybe over cooling too? 

 

Any other tests that should be run? And, any volunteers? 

[SCG_motoadve]

Low pressure gauge doesnt show decreasing until the engine dies, 109 Temp gauge, oil and fuel pressure gauges dont show damage or overheat either.

 

Really wish for a more realistic engine damage model.

 

In a real plane just loosing one magneto it will shake quite a bit and loose power, ice in carb loose power, here we have smoking engines that can ran at same power setting and then die, much more realistic would be instant loss of power and vibration and can last some time or not  this depending on damage.

Simulating engine being hit

cylinder blown , oil splash,  lots of vibration, instant loss of power, smoke,  oils on windshield, might nurse it home or not.

Oil line hit (I think this is already modeled)

Block hit also looks like its already modeled.

Fuel lines hit also modeled

[Herne]

58 minutes ago, II./JG77_motoadve said:

Low pressure gauge doesnt show decreasing until the engine dies, 109 Temp gauge, oil and fuel pressure gauges dont show damage or overheat either.

 

Really wish for a more realistic engine damage model.

 

In a real plane just loosing one magneto it will shake quite a bit and loose power, ice in carb loose power, here we have smoking engines that can ran at same power setting and then die, much more realistic would be instant loss of power and vibration and can last some time or not  this depending on damage.

Simulating engine being hit

cylinder blown , oil splash,  lots of vibration, instant loss of power, smoke,  oils on windshield, might nurse it home or not.

Oil line hit (I think this is already modeled)

Block hit also looks like its already modeled.

Fuel lines hit also modeled

 

You can make a damaged engine last longer though, by reducing MP and RPM. I get a great deal of satisfaction, every time I manage to bring a bird with engine damage home.

[danielprates]

How are we today regarding oil viscosity? Forcing the engine in cold temperatures will cause damage? I know the HUD alerts about over cooling but I am not sure about it being modelled, and what exactelly is the ingame consequence.

Edited January 4, 2019 by danielprates

[Solmyr]

On 1/3/2019 at 5:36 AM, II./JG77_motoadve said:

here we have smoking engines that can ran at same power setting and then die

 

But if we experience an RPM instability coming with a given propeller pitch, we do loose power, don't we ?

[JG4_Sputnik]

On 1/2/2019 at 7:29 PM, AeroAce said:

IRL the engine would not blow up because you were over the time limit it would just cause higher wear and tear requiring an engine over haul after flight. The only way to really model this wear and need for over haul would be if we had a game system that monitored your planes condition over a number of sorties and gave you a limmited number of engines/parts for a campaign meaning that if you burnt all your engines quickly you would not be able to fly until resupply and you would negatively impact your squadrons capabilities. I defo think this kind of role playing game aspect could be modelled and used in the career mode or on the persistent MP servers like TAW... but the Dev/hardware/server resources are most likely not there for that.

 

This would be great for the IL2 campaign. F1 2016 (17 and 18) has exactely that system implemented, where you have to take care of your engine over the course of a season. If you over rev it all the time and break too hard, you eventually wear your engine down (and your brakes) and therefore have to drive more conservatively in some races. And if the engine is "used" to zero, you have to install a new one which costs you certain points (if I recall correctely). 

 

Makes a lot of sense and gives a great feeling of continuity over the course of a season. So the devs could "simply" copy that system and implement it. I don't know how hard this would be to implement, but I guess I know Jasons answer already - no time no money.

 

Let's hope that one day they can improve the campaign with systems like that, I think there's a lot that could be implemented to add more realism/fun in the campaign. Also stuff like "leveling" up your pilots would be great - invest xp in eyesight or offense/defense tactics or something like that. Could also be attracting more casual players... I know this is a mine field for some, but you can improve realism with "gamey" features nontheless.

 

 

 

@op The only thing I know what you can do is memorize the max water and oil temps and fly the plane so that it is below those temps. If your instruments show some unusual behaviour it is too late already...

[Solmyr]

On 1/2/2019 at 7:29 PM, AeroAce said:

Be warned though this is a very touchy topic due to the way the devs have decided to model the engine limits.  Basically they have chosen to have very strict engine time limits as this stops people from taking advantage of full boost all the time. IRL the engine would not blow up because you were over the time limit it would just cause higher wear and tear requiring an engine over haul after flight. The only way to really model this wear and need for over haul would be if we had a game system that monitored your planes condition over a number of sorties and gave you a limmited number of engines/parts for a campaign meaning that if you burnt all your engines quickly you would not be able to fly until resupply and you would negatively impact your squadrons capabilities. I defo think this kind of role playing game aspect could be modelled and used in the career mode or on the persistent MP servers like TAW... but the Dev/hardware/server resources are most likely not there for that

 

 

[LukeFF]

20 hours ago, danielprates said:

How are we today regarding oil viscosity? Forcing the engine in cold temperatures will cause damage? I know the HUD alerts about over cooling but I am not sure about it being modelled, and what exactly is the ingame consequence.

 

Oil viscosity is modelled, though I'm not sure what the effects are at low temperature: https://il2sturmovik.com/news/386/version-3001-launched-battle-kuban-officially-rele/

 

Quote

Oil viscosity changes with temperature, causing an engine to be damaged faster when the maximum oil temperature is exceeded

 

[danielprates]

On 1/5/2019 at 4:26 AM, LukeFF said:

Oil viscosity is modelled, though I'm not sure what the effects are at low temperature: https://il2sturmovik.com/news/386/version-3001-launched-battle-kuban-officially-rele/

 

I did some testing with the P47. Started parked (cold), engine on, then suddently full throttle/RPM (no boost) and takeoff right away, without taxi, just there on the grass. On 5 attempts, once the plane took off and flew allright, with normal engine temperatures quickly catching on. But in all other attempts a major seizure happened sooner or later even before reaching takeoff speed. So my conclusions are: 1. Low oil viscosity coupled with horsing around causes major damage and not only major wear and tear, which sounds about right; 2. There is an ammount of randomness, explaining the one time nothing happened.

 

I'm glad with that, in my book that's good simulating of expected RL results.